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Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Waiting for Paris - McCall's 6886

Hello sewing friends!! Have you ever had a project that was supposed to be your palate cleanser just go WRONG?! That's how this project originally went for me. Let me start at the beginning...

I started this dress back in February while it was still winter and the DMV and I wanted to look cute in a sweater dress. Having made McCall's 6886 before, I already had it fitted and cut out, but I just wanted to change the length and neckline on this version.

The dress sewed up super quickly (a front, back, and sleeves), so I decided to add some interest, I would add leather to the hems and also make the neckline binding out of faux leather as well. I had never done a binding on a V-neck but thought "how hard can it be?!"

It was at this point that this project went from a one day sew, to a 3 month sew. SMH.

Problems started with the leather binding I created. I cut it with the stretch going in the wrong direction so it wouldn't stretch long enough to fit the neckline. Once I re-cut, I was having so many problems with sewing the faux leather band together to get it ready to attach. It kept sliding and moving and getting stuck under my presser foot. I tried to use tape underneath my presser foot, which has worked for me before, but no luck. I even tried tissue paper on under the presser foot and on top of the feed dogs with no success. So then I went online and ordered a teflon presser foot... more waiting.

Once the teflon foot came in, I thought I'd be done soon... NOPE. It didn't even work. It still kept getting stuck on the leather. I was really frustrated and discouraged at this point, I just had to walk away again. I basically destroyed that band with all of the sewing and unpicking because, you know, faux leather shows each and every hole that the needle makes.

I ended up having to re-cut the band AGAIN out of a completely different faux leather that I had on hand, turns out, I had ZERO issue sewing this band together. No teflon foot.... not tape under the presser foot. *RAGE* lol At least I would be able to finally finish, RIGHT?!

I was looking at the pattern instructions on how to complete the v-neck binding and was a bit confused. I had a small inkling that I should just look it up on YouTube, but then decided I can figure it out. I pinned the binding to the neckline, sewed, and then realized I could flip the binding in properly. *eye roll emoji*. Right then, I got on YouTube and within 3 minutes, I found out what I had done wrong and how to properly do it. SMH. Not only had I done it wrong, but I had also clipped into the fabric and basically messed it up. I would have to cut the neckline shorter now. Time to walk away...

I put it to rest for some time until I began to think of what garments I wanted to make for the Eurotrip I had coming up. Looking at the weather for Paris and Italy in May, I saw that it was going to be a bit cold and rainy. I looked over to my WIP pile and decided I would conquer this sweater dress for Paris. Maybe it was waiting for Paris all along!